Samuel Lee Smithers

1. Florida State Prison
   Dates unknown

Samuel Lee Smithers (January 30, 1953 – October 14, 2025), dubbed the Deacon of Death, was an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who was sentenced to death in Florida for the 1996 murders of two women. Smithers murdered prostitute Denise Roach on May 12, 1996, after he engaged her services at a local Tampa motel and later disposed of her body in a pond. On May 28, 1996, 16 days after the murder of Roach, Smithers killed another sex worker named Christy Cowan, and later dumped her body in the same pond where Roach's corpse was found after his arrest. Smithers, who was named a suspect in a 1989 unsolved killing, was found guilty of first-degree murder on both counts and sentenced to death, and he was executed by lethal injection on October 14, 2025.